Chapter 104
Jarred looked at her.
Her face was pale with panic, her eyes rimmed with red and blazing with a fierce will to live.
She had always been so headstrong, never willing to show a shred of vulnerability in front of him. This was the first time he had ever seen her like this.
Sienna gripped his hand tight. “Owen is still waiting for me. I can’t leave him alone, Jarred p>
“You’re too loud, Sienna,” his voice was hoarser than before. “I’m here. You’re not going to die p>
His grip tightened, though his expression remained totally stoic.
That was what he said.
But Sienna could clearly feel her body inching downward.
His strength was fading, the hand clutching hers gradually losing its tension.
“Jarred p>
She screamed in despair. “I know how capable you are! I trust you! Don’t let me down p>
Sienna didn’t even know what she was babbling about anymore.
But in this moment, she had no choice but to put her absolute faith in him.
Jarred didn’t answer.
As their eyes met, Sienna couldn’t decipher the complex emotion swimming in his gaze.
His eyes were terribly glassy. His fever raged, his wounds were infected, and he couldn’t even stand steadily on his own, yet he was still holding onto her.
But she felt it—his hand was slowly, inevitably slipping.
He truly couldn’t hold on any longer.
“No p>
Sienna gripped his wrist with everything she had, but it was useless.
“Jarred, you have to save me, save me p>
The second her body entered free fall, Sienna’s mind went completely blank.
As she plummeted toward the ground, her blurred vision caught a dark figure lunging off the cliff straight toward her.
The silhouette was so familiar it caused a physical ache in her chest.
The wind rushed into her mouth, and she opened it to scream his name, but couldn’t produce a single sound.
The next second, she lost consciousness completely, swallowed by an endless void of darkness.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, stinging her eyes with its brightness.
As awareness returned, Sienna felt as if her skull had been struck by a sledgehammer. The pain made her gasp.
She lay on the ground, feeling like she had been run over by a truck. Every bone in her body screamed in agony.
She forced her eyes open, realizing the sun was directly overhead. It was already high noon.
The final moments before she blacked out pieced themselves together in her mind like shards of broken glass.
She distinctly remembered carrying the delirious man that morning, misstepping, and tumbling off the cliff.
In the instant she fell, she had clearly seen him dive after her.
Jarred p>
Sienna shot up into a sitting position, aggravating her injuries. The pain was so intense her vision briefly went black.
But she ignored the agony, pushed herself up from the dirt, and looked frantically around.
But there was nothing but dense trees and tangled underbrush. Aside from the rustling of leaves in the wind, there was no sign of another human being.
She had landed on a gentle slope at the base of the cliff, with a clear trail of disturbed earth leading right to her feet.
Sienna looked down at herself.
Her clothes were torn to shreds, exposing skin covered in scratches and dried blood. Her knee was swollen to twice its size.
“Jarred p>
She yelled, her voice terribly hoarse.
No one answered.
Ignoring the piercing pain shooting from her ankle, Sienna limped awkwardly through the dense woods, stumbling as she searched.
Every step sent a tearing sensation through her injuries. Cold sweat dripped down her temples, dampening her disheveled hair.
“Jarred, can you hear me p>
She shouted his name over and over again, but the only response was the hollow echo of the mountain forest.